It's Chemical
by thisnthat9
Summary: It was a 3am bike ride that did it. The streets of Gotham were unsafe enough in the day time, but with Blackgate broken open and Bane's goons patrolling the streets at all hours, night time was especially unsafe. As if she cared. / Bane abducts a young woman for his own strange purposes / AU eventual Bane/OFC
1. Chapter 1

This is my first Batman story. I'm not entirely certain where it's going right now, but I'm currently half-way through Chapter 6 and I think I really like the direction it's taking.

Please feel free to leave me any constructive criticisms or questions or comments in general!

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It was a 3am bike ride that did it.

The streets of Gotham were unsafe enough in the day time, but with Blackgate broken open and Bane's goons patrolling the streets at all hours, night time was especially unsafe. As if she cared.

Ana rarely considered the danger or consequences of anything before doing them. Diving in headfirst to whatever was something she'd always done. As such, riding her bicycle through the mostly deserted streets of occupied Gotham at three in the morning on a Wednesday was the exact sort of thing she'd thought nothing of doing. Screaming New Found Glory lyrics at the top of her lungs through the empty streets was just the icing on the oops cake. Ana just didn't think.

The headphones jammed over her ears and blasting stopped her from hearing him, but she saw Bane standing in front of her in the middle of the street before she hit him, at least.

"Oh… fuck," it came out with her breath: a whisper.

Ana squeezed the break and stopped pedaling, letting the momentum of the fixed-gear pedals and the upward motion of the bike launch her into the air, pushing her back leg over the seat, she landed nimbly on the pavement next to the bike she held up by the handlebars.

It was the gun pointed at her that had made her stop and not simply ride around the hulk who stood in the middle of the street. She bit her lip, paused her music, and slid the headphones down around her neck. The mercenary simply stared at her.

"I seem to have captured a little bird," he rasped. His mechanical voice grated on her and made her shiver.

"A fox, really," she said, her face blank.

"A fox should be more cunning."

Ana shrugged. She was cunning when she wanted. "Was there something you wanted? If not, I'll just be going…"

"I think not," he raised an eyebrow at her, then looked into the darkness before looking back to her.

Before she had the chance to move, she was roughly grabbed by the arms and a black bag was pulled over her head. She fought and kicked as she was dragged away.

It was ages of darkness, it seemed. She was frightened and felt sick. _Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. You knew it was fucking dangerous. Everyone told you to be careful, but no, no, Ana will be fine. Ana is superhuman. Ana is above the rules. Fuck sake._ She seethed at herself as she was half-marched, half-dragged. After an hour of walking, she got fed up of it and let herself fall to her knees. A rough kick to her side had her quickly back on her feet and walking again. It burned and the pain kept her grounded. She focused on it and how it felt, prickles of bright heat in the overall dull burn of it.

Two more hours of marching in some random direction through Gotham ended with vertical motion. Ana could hear the elevator she was in. She could hear Bane's breathing, so she knew he was there as well, at least. She couldn't be sure if the elevator was moving down or up, though.

"Leave her to me," Bane said… calmly maybe? It was hard for Ana to read people at the best of times, but his mechanical voice and the blackness of the bag over her head made it impossible.

She was shoved forward and landed on rough concrete on her hands and knees, more bright flashes of pain in the blackness. Her palms burned as she pushed herself off the ground and stood up. It was neither cold nor hot and neither humid nor dry.

"You may remove that."

Ana pulled the bag off of her head and looked around. The room she stood in was brighter than she'd expected. No light had been able to permeate the black bag. There were computers and monitors set up on a desk with a chair and a rumpled slept-in bed in the corner, but aside from that, the room was mostly empty.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Home."

"Yours?" she asked.

"Ours," he answered with a finality that would have told most people it was time to shut up. Ana frowned at him in confusion.

"I don't understand. What do you want me for?" she asked.

"In time. For now, clean yourself up," Bane nodded to a door at the back of the room.

Ana huffed and walked across the room and through the door. It was a roughly constructed bathroom. A large pipe opened up in the middle of the floor and a bucket hung from a spigot on the wall.

"You can't be serious," she muttered. At least there was a mirror.

She looked like shit – her hair stood up on all ends from having been in that bag for so long. She pulled a hand through it, flattening it and sorting out the largest tangles, smoothing it to the side. The top section of her hair fell into her face like a neon pink and orange veil while the rest of it – dark brown, was closely cropped on the sides and back of her head. At least that made it easy to deal with.

Ana lifted an arm and ducked her head. She reeked of sweat, but having Bane for an apparent new roomie wasn't too much of an incentive to smell nice. She turned the spigot on anyway and let the water pour into the bucket, waiting until it was half-full before shutting the water off. It was cold. Not icy, but definitely not pleasant. There weren't any washcloths or towels and she sighed in annoyance, putting the bucket on the floor and walking back out the door.

"Have you got some sort of towel or rag or something?" she asked, looking at the floor rather than meeting Bane's eyes. Something she had yet to do, in fact. She still didn't even know what colour they were. "And a shirt maybe? There's really no point in me 'cleaning myself up' if I've nothing clean to wear."

Bane rummaged through a pile of clothing on the floor next to the bed and tossed a shirt towards her. It was plain black and many sizes too big. Ana reached and caught it out of the air before retreating back into the 'bathroom'. She shucked off her shoes and the tight bike messenger knickers she preferred to wear when riding and pulled off her hoodie and the tshirt she wore beneath it. She twisted and turned in the mirror, looking at her body before watching herself take off her underwear. She struck some nude poses in the mirror, and then walked over and kneeled in front of the bucket.

Ana held her breath and plunged her head into the cold water, swishing her hair around a bit before snapping up, flipping her wet hair behind her, creating an arc of splashed water along the walls and ceiling. She scrubbed at her scalp with a bar of soap she had found on the floor. The minimalism of the bathroom and the rough concrete scraping against her knees, shins, and the tops of her feet kept her painfully aware that she was not home, not safe, not okay. It was all she could do to try and keep herself calm by pretending as though this was any other shower.

When the lather in her hair was thick, she pulled and molded her hair into a Mohawk, watching in the mirror as it stood for a few seconds before flopping over into her face. She scraped the soapy hair off her face before pouring water from the bucket over herself and following it with the bar of soap, sudsing and lathering her entire body. She did her face last and then blindly felt her way over to the wall spigot, turning it on and sitting beneath it, rubbing at her skin and hair to rinse away the soap. Once she was soap-free, Ana swished the soap bar around in the remaining bucket water until it was hazy and bubbly. She washed her clothes in it and then rinsed and rung them out over the open pipe that served as a toilet.

Finished washing herself and her clothes, Ana twisted the water out of her hair and poured the contents of the bucket down the pipe before setting it back where it was. A thing she wouldn't have done at home, but she preferred not to fuck about with Bane's stuff.

She had been correct in her size estimation of the shirt Bane had tossed her. It was like a black tent, but at least it covered every bit of her stupidly long torso. She gathered her sill rather wet clothing in her arms and held them away from herself before pushing the door open with her foot and walking into the room.

"Where can I put these to dry?" she asked.

Bane pointed at a wire strung across the back corner of the room.

"Right. Thanks." Ana stood on her toes to hang the clothes up.

She turned around when she had finished.

"I'm clean now. Will you be telling me what you want with me, now?" she asked.

Mechanical rasping breath was her answer. She could feel him staring at her, but she didn't want to look. Eye contact was hard when it was people she'd known her whole life, there was no way she wanted to try it with Bane. She could hear him shuffling through papers on the desk.

"Ana Verland Roberts. Twenty-two years old. Born the twenty-seventh of June," he read off from a folder he held open in front of him. Ana's stomach turned. Her abduction had been planned – there wasn't a thing she could have done to save herself. "Five feet six inches tall. One hundred twenty five pounds. Hazel eyes. Brown hair. Of Native American, Middle Eastern, and European descent. Adopted at birth. Blood type B with negative RH factor. Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder."

She saw him put the folder down out of the corner of her eye and she tried to breathe evenly.

"Is there anything I missed?" he asked. If he hadn't been wearing the mask, and if she'd had someone else's brain, she'd have known his voice was smug.

"Asperger's Syndrome," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Interesting. How does that manifest itself?" His voice was flat but it was a question; that she could tell, at least.

"I lack empathy, my thought process is highly logical rather than emotionally driven, I do not understand the body language of others, I am highly skilled at faking emotions, and I am meticulous and relentless – though self-absorbed."

"Helpful qualities."

"Why do you have my medical file? What do you want with me?"

"All things in time," he said again. "For now, sleep."

"Where?" There was only one bed in the room – his. He pointed to it.

Ana uneasily walked to it and sat down. It must have been nearly seven in the morning and Ana was exhausted, but the fear and stress were making her sick to her stomach, which caused all new anxiety. Her teeth chattered as she lay back on the bed, resting her head on the pillow. It smelled of hospital and it occurred to her that it was probably from vapor escaping his mask while he slept. If he slept – that was.

She nervously lay on Bane's bed for what seemed like forever, but it couldn't have been more than ten minutes before her full exhaustion overcame her anxiety and she fell asleep.

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I've tried not to Wooby Bane. I'm sorry if I've failed at that, but I think if you keep reading, it'll work itself out and explain what's going on more - that's my intent, anyway. Do keep in mind that the main character has Asperger's Syndrome and is therefore mostly oblivious to what Bane is actually feeling. There will be parts written from his point of view, so please review and check back later. Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

I'd like to thank everyone who followed, favourited, and reviewed! I really appreciate it.

I got one comment about hoping this story didn't get dull, and now I'm worried about it getting dull! I'm trying to keep it fast-paced and interesting, so let me know how I'm doing? Thanks again!

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Ana had no sense of what time it was when she woke up. There were no windows in the room she was being made to stay in. She had woken up all at once, suddenly, and looked around, not knowing what had woken her. Her dream perhaps? She couldn't remember it, either way.

Her eyes scanned the room and settled finally on Bane who sat at the desk along the opposite wall, tapping away at one of the keyboards sitting on his desk. Ana cleared her throat and he turned his head toward her.

"I was told you would need a decent amount of sleep for today's plans. Are you well rested?"

"What time is it?" she asked instead.

"Three in the afternoon," he answered.

"I guess I'm adequately rested, then."

"You have a busy afternoon. Get dressed."

It was then that Ana noticed a neatly folded pile of clothes at the foot of her bed. She pulled them apart and unfolded them, examining each item.

Black skinny jeans, black vans, black underwear, black bra, black band tshirt, black hoodie. They were all hers.

"How did you get these?"

"We know every detail about your life. It was of little trouble to collect your things."

Ana huffed angrily but slid out of the bed. She still wore Bane's shirt. It hung half-way down her thighs. She put on the underwear and bra first, then pulled his shirt off and threw it across the room near where her damp clothes were still taking their time drying. Once she was dressed, she stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, shuffling the toes of her shoes together.

"I'm ready," she mumbled.

Bane rose from the chair and turned to her, looking her over briefly before he strode to the elevator. He pressed the call button and when the doors opened, he waited for Ana to go in before following her and inserting a key into the panel and turning it. The elevator began moving – up, she could see now – and Ana silently stood looking at the back of her massive captor.

An elevator ride (after which, Bane handed her off to several mercs and withdrew back into the elevator), a ride in a van, a walk in the cold. They ended up at Gotham General Hospital. A bag was once again placed over Ana's head, blocking out the world, and she wondered why she was allowed to see that they were at a hospital, but that the ward she was going to would be hidden. A heavy hand on her shoulder guided her along and the sterile smell of the hospital crept up her nostrils. It was a smell she was familiar with; her mother had been a doctor and she'd spent much time as a child with her mother at work.

Ana was placed on an examination table – somewhere – before the bag was removed from her head. A doctor stood waiting, she had a kind face and it eased Ana's nerves a little to know that she would be seen by an actual doctor who was probably being threatened by the mercenaries rather than one of them.

"I'll need to examine you. Can you let me do that please?" the doctor asked. Ana looked at her suspiciously.

"Examine me for what?" she asked.

"You're being given medicine, and eventually, you'll have a procedure if all goes well. It's nothing to worry about – entirely normal. I just… I'm unable to tell you what it is. But you need a full examination so that I can make certain you're healthy enough for it," the doctor – 'Dr. Murphy' was embroidered on her lab coat – explained.

"And I have to?" Ana asked, looking down at the floor.

"We both have to. I've been given no choice. I'm sorry."

"Fine," Ana snapped, frustrated with the entire situation, rather than angry with Dr. Murphy. If she had no choice, she had no choice but that didn't mean Ana had to be happy about it.

"I'll turn around while you take off your clothes and put the gown on. I'd leave, but I'm not allowed to leave you unattended," Dr. Murphy apologized.

Ana glared at the blank white wall and grabbed the hospital gown off the table, kicking her shoes off as she did. She slid out of her clothes and slipped the gown on, open at the back.

Dr. Murphy first took her vitals and felt around her spine and organs, making sure everything was in order. Next, a blood test, then an ultrasound of her entire abdomen, from just below her ribcage to just above her pubic bone. Lastly, and worst, an internal pelvic exam. Ana had had one once before when she'd been seventeen and needed birth control, but she'd not had another for years. It wasn't painful, but it was embarrassing and awkward and she wanted to curl into a ball and punch people all at the same time.

It was an hour of waiting before Ana was brought back from the waiting room to the examination room. She was sure there were some poor lab techs somewhere being held at gunpoint to work her results so quickly.

"You're entirely healthy," Dr. Murphy told her.

"Great. Tell me something I didn't already know," Ana replied with a huff. She'd already known she was fine. It was Bane who wanted to do fucked up medical things to her body, she was not a willing volunteer.

"You're being put on a course of injections. You'll need one every day for the next two weeks. You'll have an appointment with me every three days to see that the treatments are going well. You might feel a little strange, but it's all completely normal."

"What are you doing to me?" Ana asked angrily.

"I'm sorry. I can't tell you," Dr. Murphy told her, gently pressing a needle into the muscle of her stomach. It pinched and there was pressure, but it was over soon.

"What are they doing to control you?"

"They have my family. I'm sorry."

Ana was sent back to Bane's hell under ground with a load of injections she'd have to stick into herself every day. The bag was placed back over her head when they left the hospital and she wondered if they weren't going to the same place. When the van stopped and was turned off, there was another elevator ride. This time, Ana had been placed into the elevator alone. She waited a few moments, and the elevator jerked to a start by itself, lowering down into the ground, apparently being called from below.

She stepped out into the bland room she'd shared with Bane the night before. He was waiting for her, sitting in his desk chair, turned toward her with his hands resting on his thighs. Her eyes immediately went to his hands.

"What are you having done to me?" she asked, setting down the bag of injections she'd gotten from the hospital.

"Only a necessity. You will be enlightened, but now is not the time," he rasped. "You need to eat."

Ana glared at him. "I'm not hungry."

"Would you prefer a feeding tube?" he asked.

"Fine. What is there to eat?" she asked.

Ana suspected that Bane needed her for something. Desperately needed her, and her alone, for whatever purpose it was. Needed her badly enough to put up with a bit of shit from her that he would take from no one else. She was trying to be compliant enough to not get hurt, but it was difficult to control her temper and reactions sometimes. Luckily, she seemed to be essential to whatever his plans were. Ana had learned long ago that if you were needed, you could get away with many things others could not.

For the next two weeks, Ana lived underground with Bane. Sleeping in his bed, eating the food he either brought, or had brought for her, using an open pipe as a toilet and a bucket as a shower. Bane occasionally spoke to her, but she mostly stayed in bed, staring at the wall. He came and went unannounced and seemingly at random. Every day, Ana stuck a needle into her stomach and injected herself with whatever it was. Sometimes it was best to just not fight these things. Every three days, she was brought to Gotham General to have her appointment with Dr. Murphy who assured her that everything – whatever it was – was going well.

At the end of the two weeks, Bane escorted her up the elevator, and unlike every other time she'd been to the hospital, he came along. She could hear his breathing the entire time and it was unsettling - and at the same time, like being with Darth Vader. When the bag was removed from her head, she found herself alone in an exam room. Dr. Murphy walked in with a smile and a needle.

"I'm going to give you a mild anti-anxiety medicine," the doctor told her.

Dr. Murphy wrapped a rubber tourniquet around Ana's bicep and had her squeeze her fist a few times until one of the larger veins in her arm began to bulge. The needle went in with a pinch.

"That should kick in right quick," she said. "I'll start your IV in just a moment."

Ana was sitting up in Bane's bed in the room underground. She blinked and looked around. It was just as it had looked that morning… except… hadn't she gone to the hospital for a procedure? She didn't feel too bad… perhaps it hadn't been a big deal. It was the most bizarre feeling though… not being able to remember anything apart from a few seconds after she arrived and the doctor had given her an injection. She'd said it was an anti-anxiety medicine… but Ana doubted it. It was more likely an amnesiac so that she didn't remember any of the procedure.

Bane was sitting in his chair watching her. She looked at him, settling her eyes on his mask, keeping them firmly below his eyes.

"Did I have my procedure?" she asked.

"Yes. I was told it went well."

"You haven't placed a bomb inside of my ribcage or anything, have you?" Ana asked, biting her lip.

"Nothing detrimental to your health occurred."

"Once I've recovered, can I go home?" she asked hopefully.

"You are home," came his cold answer. Her stomach sank. She missed her laptop and her cat and her bicycle. … her bicycle that she'd been riding when she was captured.

"Where is my bike?"

"It was brought back to your apartment when your clothes were retrieved."

Ana sighed angrily. At least it was safe, though. Her mother had gotten that bike for her as an early birthday present. She'd been asking for the exact bike for two years for Christmas and birthdays, and her mother finally got it for her – and then a week later, she'd fallen down a flight of stairs and suffered enough brain trauma that she'd died. She had been unwell anyway, but the suddenness of her death had shocked Ana.

"How much longer will I have to stay here?"

"Six days. You will go back to the hospital for another appointment, and then you will be brought elsewhere."

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Thanks for reading! I'll try and update relatively soon. I meant to update two days ago, but didn't have access to the internet. Please review and tell me if you like this or not and constructive criticism is always welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing and following! I meant to post this two days ago, but I couldn't manage it. I'm sorry for making y'all wait! I hope you like this chapter :) I'll keep working on banging this out. I've been a little stuck, but I think I just got my muse back today.

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Ana could remember going to the hospital. She remembered being led into an exam room, but once again, after being given an 'anti-anxiety' injection, her memories of the rest of the visit were mysteriously gone. The next moment she remembered was being held by one of Bane's goons in an elevator. It was different than the one that went to the underground concrete prison she'd been kept in for nearly three weeks.

Bane stood in front of them and when the elevator reached whatever floor it was going to – things were still rather fuzzy – the goon carried her out and followed Bane down an elegantly decorated hallway. Definitely somewhere else, then. She was carried through a door into a massive apartment with wide windows and a sweeping view of Gotham. A spiral staircase led to an even larger section of the apartment. She was carried through a hall and a set of double doors into a room with a king sized bed. There were many other things in the room, but the dark wood of the massive four-poster caught her attention as did the black hangings and bedding.

"Caught on, have you?" She asked Bane as the goon set her onto the bed and quickly retreated leaving the two of them alone.

Bane said nothing. Her head felt heavy and her body was limp. Bane removed her shoes and jeans for her, putting the shoes next to the bed and folding the pants up on a chair. He went to the dressers and opened a drawer, removing a pair of mesh running shorts she recognized as her own. They had been part of her athletics uniform at school when she was a teenager and she'd never thrown them away. He slid them on her, and pulled the bedding out from under her before tucking her in. She couldn't understand why he was being so nice to her – this man who shouldn't have cared about anything at all.

"Sleep." He commanded her. "Rest today, you may explore tomorrow."

"I can't just sleep because you tell me to. I need music or something," she snapped, rolling her eyes – a thing she had done so often for years, she no longer realized when she was doing it.

Bane turned from the room and when he returned, it was with a familiar white, rectangular object with rounded edges: her laptop. Ana's eyes widened and she stretched her hands out to take it. Once it was in her arms, she clutched it tightly to her chest. It was just a hunk of plastic and metal, but what could be better? She'd been without it for weeks and it had been torture.

"Thank you," she told him without meaning to. She hadn't wanted to thank him, but the main social niceties had been repetitively pounded into her head by her parents over the years and she couldn't help herself but thank people when they did things for her.

"Is there wi-fi?" she asked, knowing there would be, but wondering if he'd actually give her the password for it.

"Rest." Bane said with a finality that even Ana could detect.

He left her alone, then, and she hurriedly opened her laptop and turned it on.

"Fucking love you, thank fuck," she whispered to it, stroking it's scratched and dented plastic sides. She tended to treat it roughly, but aside from perhaps her bicycle, there wasn't a single object she loved more. She opened iTunes and scrolled through the many playlists she'd made, picking one and setting it to play with shuffle and repeat.

Music filtered through the speakers and after a time, she fell asleep.

When Ana awoke, it was to bright sunlight and silence. She groggily looked around her and saw that her laptop had been closed and placed on the bedside table. She cleared her throat and clumsily reached for it, pulling it onto her chest before opening it. It was 10am.

The carpet was lush and soft under her feet when she finally pulled herself out of bed. A rummage through the dressers in the room revealed that all of her clothes had been put here for her. She frowned, but continued her examination of the bedroom, which revealed more objects that had been brought from her apartment.

After a while of wandering around the very expensive looking apartment, Ana finally found the kitchen. There were grey marble counters and shiny, brushed steel appliances and it opened out onto a couch-filled living room with a massive flat screen television. Bane was casually sitting at a barstool at the island that served as the kitchen table. He looked up when she walked in and watched her as she looked around at the room.

"Whose house is this?" she wondered aloud.

"Ours."

She looked at him and narrowed her eyes in a glare, looking him in the eyes for the first time. His were wide and dark. She blew an angry breath out through her teeth and turned from him.

"You're being put on a diet."

She turned back, confused.

"But I'm not fat…"

"It is not a weight-loss diet."

"Fuck sake," she mumbled in frustration and turned back to the fridge. When she opened it, a cool blast of air washed over her and she took a calming breath letting the coolness of it settle her down. It was fully stocked but a tray sat on the shelf just at her eyeline. A label on it told her it was her breakfast. She pulled the tray out and brought it to the island Bane sat at. She put the tray down on the opposite corner from him, as far away as she could get, and sat down, pulling the lid off the tray to see what there was.

It was oatmeal with milk and apple sauce and apple juice. Ana frowned and looked up at Bane.

"Do I really have to eat all of this?" she asked. Usually, she'd just have cereal and almond milk – she watched her calories closely and knew that oatmeal had a lot of calories in it.

"Yes."

Ana sighed angrily and began picking at the food. She ate slowly, forcing everything down. It didn't make her feel sick, but rather anxious instead. She was unused to eating so much at once and had worked hard to lose thirty pounds and keep it off.

"Why am I with you?" she asked.

"I trust no one else with something this important," he replied, his mask hissing and running shivers up her spine.

"How important is whatever this is?" Ana gulped down the apple juice – that part was easy.

"More important than you can imagine."

"More important than razing Gotham to the ground?"

"To me. By the time Gotham falls, you and I will be far from here."

"You'll leave the city in a wash of fire and blood that you let loose upon it?"

"Gotham has torn itself apart," he stated. "I merely provided the instruments. One such as you must understand putting ones self before others."

"It can't be helped in my case. I can't feel empathy. It's not that I block it out or don't try. I'm not an unfeeling, insensitive monster," Ana spat at him. "You choose not to care. I don't have a choice."

"And that is why you are the one I need."

Bane kept a close eye on her. Ana was made to eat three planned meals and two snacks at certain times each day, breakfast accompanied by vitamins, and she was forced to drink 2.5 liters of water each day, which made her have to pee. All the time.

Aside from that, it was mostly like being at home… apart from not being allowed to go anywhere but the two floors of the apartment, the rooftop for fresh air, and the onsite gym and pool in the basement. Bane escorted her everywhere she went, but said little. She felt relatively well so whatever medical nastiness they were doing to her body mustn't have been so nasty after all.

Despite the exercise she did every day, her forced diet was making her put on weight, and Bane had put a one-hour limit on her workouts. He didn't want her straining herself – apparently.

Ana had been with him in the penthouse apartment for seven weeks when it finally occurred to her to ask him something she'd been wondering for months. They were sitting at the kitchen island. She was eating her lunch, he was reading a file.

"How do you even eat?" she asked.

"Like any other man."

"What does the mask do?"

"It administers medication."

"What kind?"

"Pain medication."

"Has it got to do with the scarring down your spine?"

Bane said nothing but nodded once. Most people would have inquired about what happened; Ana didn't really care, so she didn't ask.

"Does my being here have anything to do with that?"

"You will know soon enough why you are here."

* * *

Hopefully this is still good. Let me know what you think with a review? Thanks!


	4. Chapter 4

I'm so sorry for my lapse in updating! I meant to update on Friday... but now it's Monday. WHOOPS! Well, everyone seems to have been wondering what on earth is going on with Bane's weirdo ~medical experiments~ on Ana... so congratulations, this is the day you find out.

Thank you so much to everyone who followed and favourited, and especially to those of you who have reviewed. It's so very appreciated!

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Bane had not lied. Three weeks later, Ana was hyperventilating. The diet she was on had been causing her to gain weight, for sure, but she'd thought she was just bloating around the middle. When she woke up, she took a shower, and as she ran her hands over her belly, she looked down at it in confusion. It was unmistakably bigger than she remembered. Beyond what a normal person would think of as bloating, to be sure. She stepped out of the shower, not bothering to turn it off, and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around herself and going out into her bedroom to stand in front of the long mirror panels that covered a full wall. She turned this way and that and the bump was unmistakable. There was something inside of her. Something that was growing.

Ana shook as she dried her body and pulled on underwear and a tshirt, not bothering with anything else before storming out of the room, slamming the door as she went.

"Bane!" she screamed through the apartment. He wasn't in the kitchen.

"Where are you?! Bane!" She rushed through the rooms, checking them all. Finally, she came to his room. The door was closed. She pounded on it, but he didn't answer. She twisted the handle and pushed, it was unlocked, and it slammed into the wall as she burst in.

He was stretched out on his bed; an IV in his arm, calmly eating and it took her a few moments to realize that his mask was off. She was so shocked that she momentarily forgot that she had something growing inside of her that he'd had put there. He wasn't attractive, but he wasn't hideous either, and something about his face made her skin crawl. It wasn't his broken nose, broken though it certainly was. Something about his mouth made her lips curl back.

Bane raised his eyebrows at her and she realized what her face was doing and schooled it back to anger from her repulsed confusion.

"There's something inside of me," she angrily told him.

He chewed and swallowed. "Yes," he agreed. His voice was the same but different… less mechanical, more human. It was strange.

"You know what it is?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Is it an experiment? What is it?" she asked, looking down at her body. The protrusion was hidden by her shirt, but she knew it was there now, she could feel it.

Bane put his food – a breakfast burrito, how normal – down and reached for the mask. It was on his bedside table. He slipped it back over his face and snapped the valves into place. The mechanical hiss she was used to returned. He adjusted a valve on the IV drip and then pulled the tube out of his arm.

"What is inside of me?" Ana asked desperately, panic was rising in her chest.

Bane fixed his eyes on hers and slowly got to his feet. "A human fetus."

"You've made me an incubator?" she asked, confused now. She was a surrogate? It was such a normal thing. Not to her, of course, but if they had needed a surrogate, why could they not have gotten a woman signed up for it somewhere? "Why? Whose is it?"

"Ours."

Bile was rising in her throat. "Ours as in… belonging to you mercenaries in a sort of vague general way, or…"

"Half of its genetic makeup is yours, the other half is mine," he clarified.

Ana couldn't breathe, her stomach turned and heaved and she dropped to her knees, heaving bile onto his carpet. Bane didn't move from where he was standing by the side of his bed. She was sobbing and only really realized it when she felt tears running down her cheeks.

"No, please," she cried. "I don't want this. Get it out of me. Please…"

Ana rose to her knees and looked up at Bane, he looked blurry and watery from the tears in her eyes.

"Please!" she begged. "Get this out of me!"

She begged and cried on the floor and Bane just watched her silently until she wore herself out. She shivered and shook on his floor, tears still running down her face, but all of her energy had gone into pleading with him and she was exhausted.

"Did you rape me and make me forget about it?" she asked as he was carrying her back to her room. His skin burned against hers and made her want to slide out of her skin.

"In vitro fertilization," he told her. "I've never raped anyone."

"Why me?"

"You are a genetic match to me. You're female, between 18 and 30, and in good health. You were the ideal candidate."

"A genetic match to you? What does that matter?" she wondered.

"The closer match two people are, the less likely the cells of one are to reject from the cells of the other."

"What do you need my cells for?"

"Not your cells, stem cells from the unused embryos and from the umbilical cord blood."

"What will you do with it when it's born?" They had reached her room and Bane set her on the bed.

"It has not been decided. Rest now, you've exhausted yourself."

"You're just worried that I'll miscarry your vile spawn and whatever it is you need it for will be ruined," she mumbled grumpily, settling herself into the bed. Of course, if she did miscarry, he'd probably just have her made pregnant again.

"Can I have my cat please? I promise I'll look after myself if I can just have my cat," she requested. It was worth a try. She knew Mizz would have found some way to survive on her own – she was a cat – but Ana missed her terribly.

"Your cat is in the care of one of your friends," Bane told her. "If your first trimester goes smoothly on your part, the cat will be brought here for you."

"Thank you."

Ana waited for Bane to leave her alone and go back to eating his burrito, but he stayed, instead, watching her. It was uncomfortable, being beneath his eyes and she shifted, unable to escape his gaze.

"I interrupted you eating," she told him. "I won't give myself a coat hanger abortion if you go finish eating."

He gave her a look she couldn't identify the emotion of, and retreated from the room. Alone, she stretched out on the bed and pulled her shirt up over the protrusion of her belly. She'd always had a fearful fascination with pregnancy. She didn't feel pregnant, though, she felt like a science experiment. She was lightly tracing her fingers across the bump when Bane returned, startling her. He'd brought her tray of labeled breakfast, his own burrito, and the IV stand from his room.

"Maybe try knocking?" she suggested in annoyance. Bane set the tray on her bed and went over to sit in the chair at her bedside. He slid the IV back into his wrist and taped it into place before reaching up and removing his mask. When it was set onto her bedside table, he returned to eating his burrito. Ana stared at him as he did all of this and made no attempt to touch her own food.

"Eat," he commanded once he'd swallowed.

"I've just been sick," she mumbled, lifting the lid on the tray anyway.

"You made yourself sick. Eat." He left no room for negotiation.

Ana sighed and began eating. She hardly tasted the food. That she was incubating a fetus still hadn't sunk in yet. She refused to let herself think of it as a baby, or of herself as being pregnant. It was a cell cluster that happened to be feeding off of her and growing within her. It made her feel less violated to think of it that way – scientifically – than if she thought of it as 'pregnant with Bane's child'.

"Why are you treating me so well?" she asked him.

"There are many ways one can treat a prisoner to keep them compliant," he began. "The better cared for you are, the less complications are apt to occur with the pregnancy. Treating you well accomplishes both."

"Seems legit…" she murmured with a raise of her eyebrows.

They were quiet for a while as they ate.

"You look different than I thought you would," Ana randomly commented. "I didn't think you'd look so normal."

"I was normal until I put the mask on."

"Normal… if you say so." He rolled his eyes and Ana looked down and smiled at her lap. "It's not genetic, then, is it? Whatever is wrong with you?"

"There was a great deal of physical trauma. I was unable to heal from it."

"Good. Why does no one ever come here?" she asked.

"Dr. Murphy is coming to examine you in a few days," he replied.

"I never see anyone but you," she shot back.

"My brothers come while you sleep. Darkness is our ally."

_Then when does he sleep?_ She wondered. They'd lived together in a tiny room and he'd left often enough, but she'd had the bed and had never seen him sleep. She watched him eating for a while. He was so normal looking without the mask – sure, he was huge – but he seemed like any man sitting at her bedside eating a burrito.

Several days later, true to Bane's word, Dr. Murphy came to examine her. She brought along a mobile ultrasound machine.

"Hello Ana, how are you feeling?" she asked when she walked in to Ana's room, where she'd been made, by Bane, to wait until the doctor came and saw her.

"Really well, actually. I didn't know I was… not the same, until… well… this," she gestured to her belly.

"I couldn't tell you. I'm so sorry. I wanted to come check how you were doing weeks ago, but I wasn't allowed. Let's see how you're doing, shall we?" she asked.

Dr. Murphy felt around at her belly, prodding gently, then took some blood. She turned the ultrasound machine on and squirted weird lubricant onto her protruding abdomen. Dr. Murphy hummed softly as she slid a plastic wand across Ana's bump.

"Ah… hm. Well, this can happen sometimes with in vitro," she said softly. "I don't know if I can tell you… but let me go ask what I should do."

Dr. Murphy left her alone and slightly worried. Ana knew that if anything was wrong with the fetus, she would be forced to start over again and it would be even longer that she was Bane's prisoner being used to incubate his offspring. Ana reached up and turned the monitor toward herself and then took the wand in hand, moving it over herself. She couldn't make sense out of it though and quickly righted the equipment before the doctor returned.

"No, everything is healthy," Dr. Murphy's voice came floating in. "I just wasn't sure if I could tell her."

Dr. Murphy walked in just ahead of Bane. She sat back down and took the wand in hand. She moved it across Ana's belly and stopped.

"Here," she said to Bane, pointing at something on the screen. "And here," she said, moving the wand and pointing again.

"Is something wrong?" Ana asked finally, looking up at the both of them. Dr. Murphy's face was neutral, but Bane was looking at her with an odd expression she couldn't read.

"Nothing. It's just… there are two," the doctor replied.

"Two… fetuses?" Ana inquired hesitantly.

"Yes," Dr. Murphy confirmed.

Ana looked up at Bane; he was still looking at her.

"Is… is that okay?" her question was for Bane, but she looked over at Dr. Murphy as well. The doctor glanced at Bane. He nodded and turned away, leaving them alone again.

"Everything is fine, health wise. I'll see you in a few more weeks for another check-up."

* * *

I hope this isn't too ridiculous for some of you... Hopefully it will make more sense to everyone eventually if it doesn't now. I'm currently banging my way through Chapter 10 while being rather distracted by The Hobbit and Game of Thrones fics that are gnawing at my brain. So, no worries, there will be at least 6 more chapters and I'll have at least 6 more weeks to write even more. I'm sure I can manage that!

If you love it, hate it, or have any sort of thoughts, let me know in a review!

Thanks again!


	5. Chapter 5

I want to thank everyone so much for their reviews, follows, and favourites! This marks the half-way point of what I've written at present, but it's not half-way through the story yet, so don't worry! You'll finally get to see inside Bane's head in this one (yaaay!)

* * *

Bane had been acting strangely around her since Dr. Murphy's visit the week before. Not that he wasn't always strange – he was – but he was acting differently. Before, he'd occasionally and begrudgingly spoken with Ana, now, she could hardly get three words out of him at a time. He poured over folders at the kitchen table half the day, ate his food with her wherever she chose to eat, and spent the rest of the time out somewhere, but he no longer spoke with her. It wasn't that Ana minded all that much – him not really speaking with her – it just got quite lonely.

It was a Wednesday. Ana had woken up and waited an hour for Bane to walk in with their breakfast and an IV stand as he did every morning around 9. He never came. Eventually, she got hungry and ventured into the kitchen to get her own food. Her breakfast tray was waiting for her in the fridge, her lunch and dinner trays were stacked on other shelves, which was strange, as usually just one tray appeared at a time for her. She wondered how they got there and who made them for her, but she shrugged it off and went to sit on a couch and eat.

She put her breakfast dishes in the sink and went to see if Bane was in his room. He wasn't. Everything was orderly and it didn't look as though he'd left in a rush. Having the apartment alone to herself was a rarity; one that Ana took full advantage of. She hooked her iPod up to the speaker system and set her 'STONE' playlist to blasting rock music throughout the house.

Ana lounged on the rooftop for a while, took pictures of herself with Photo Booth on her laptop, looked at her belly bump in the mirror, and snacked on whatever had been left in the fridge with her name on it.

It was strange, she thought, how she hadn't even noticed that she was… that she had become a human incubator. She still couldn't think of herself as pregnant. She was trying to keep calm about the whole situation and 'pregnant with twins to an insane masked terrorist' was not the right way to think in order to stay calm. She was a science experiment. Even though he wasn't cruel to her, she was sure Bane thought of her as a science experiment as well. That was strange, too. She knew he was just trying to get his way as easily as possible, but letting her stay with him in a huge luxurious penthouse, eating with her, and spending free time with her all seemed really familiar and a strange thing to do. Especially when she considered what he was like around everyone else.

Ana's lovely time alone had its end sometime after the sun had gone down. Embarrassingly enough, she was singing and dancing on a coffee table in the living room when there was a cacophonous crash behind her, which ended the music. She gasped and spun around, she nearly slipped off the table, but steadied herself. Bane stood glaring at her, the ruins of the stereo at his feet. He marched forward and grabbed her arm, lightly pulling her off the table. He smelled like sweat and blood and Ana said nothing as he escorted her back to her bedroom and pushed her towards the bed.

"What's your deal?" she asked angrily and sat on the bed.

"Stay away from the roof top from now on," he commanded her.

"Why?"

"Do what I say," he grumbled, his voice like thunder.

"Fine…" Ana mumbled under her breath.

The next week, a new doctor came to examine Ana. Throughout the examination, Bane stood behind him, hand on the gun in his belt, glaring threateningly any time the doctor glanced his way.

"What happened to Dr. Murphy?" Ana asked Bane while they ate dinner that night.

"She had an accident. She will not be back."

That ended that conversation.

The next morning, Ana woke up to a strange rumbling noise. It sounded like rattling marbles. She frowned and tried to turn, but something was sitting on her legs. Ana sat up and was met with luminous green-grey eyes. Tears sprang to her eyes before she realized what was happening.

"Mizz!" she cried gleefully, scooping the cat into her arms and clutching her tight to her chest. The aged cat sniffed her and then snuggled happily against her.

"I've missed you so much," she whispered against the cat's head, giving her a kiss and a rub behind the ears.

Ana climbed out of bed cradling her cat and walked out into the kitchen. Bane was sitting at the table, not reading anything for once, but seemingly waiting for her.

"You got Mizz back," she said. "Thank you."

"You have had a healthy first trimester. That was the parameters of our agreement," he replied with a shrug.

"When will the bomb go off?" she asked.

"Nine weeks. You and I will both be far from here."

"Where will we go?"

"Elsewhere."

* * *

She was irritating with her persistent questions. She got the gist to shut up eventually, but from his research into Asperger's Syndrome, he had figured that she just really couldn't help herself. The problem was not the questions. The problem was the way she made him feel. She was a festering wound; the only weak spot in his armor.

In his entire life, Talia was the only friend he'd ever had. He had protected her in the pit, and she had sent her father back to rescue him. He would have done nearly anything for her, and he would miss her when she was gone, but he could not, would not let his life end with avenging a man who had sent him away for reasons out of his own control. After all, without him, what would become of the League of Shadows? One day, another place would offset the balance of the world and it would be up to him to remove it from the face of the Earth.

He would help complete the work of Ra's al Ghul, but beyond that, he had no intention of dying for the rot that was Gotham. While Talia had put her efforts into bringing down Gotham, he had done all she'd asked him to, while putting his own efforts into a way to get himself out of the mask. He had been Bane-in-the-mask for so long, he'd forgotten who he was before the mask. He fully intended to spend the rest of his life finding out.

And this girl, this annoying, quirky, strange girl was his means. It wasn't that he had any real feelings for the girl herself, but what she represented, his freedom. She was hope and despair. The hope had such a strong grip on him that he felt sick to think of anything going wrong.

Just weeks ago, he'd heard of a special ops team that had been fed information about the girl and what she carried inside of her. Information from Dr. Murphy. Stupid bitch. She had known full well what would happen to her family should she attempt to move against him in any way. The family, he sent his brothers to take care of. The good doctor… he enjoyed snapping her neck himself. The special ops team was quickly dispatched. He hadn't needed to hide that part from Talia. The men had been working with the remaining members of Gotham's police force – the ones who weren't trapped below ground.

From the moment the suggestion spilled out of a doctor's lips, to perhaps try to use stem cells to repair the damage to his body, he had been prepared to do whatever was required. He had held a gun to the doctor's head while the man told him all he could of stem cells and what he would need to do to ensure the cells did not reject. There was always the chance they would anyway, of course, but doing this would be his best chance.

Emotionally, Bane had thought he was entirely prepared to capture this girl, look after her, and conduct this experiment. Growing something within her to give him a new life. He had been ready… but the moment Dr. Murphy had shown him the ultrasound machine, it had been like a sucker punch to the gut. There were two lives inside of this girl he barely knew. Looking at that screen had changed the game. This was not a science experiment; he had fathered children, two of them, even. After that, no matter how hard he tried to think of it as just a cure, he couldn't manage it. No matter what he said or did from that time on, for his entire life, he was responsible for more than just himself.

And here was this girl who had no idea the danger she was in. She didn't know what people would do to get their hands on her, and what they would do to her once they had. Everyone who knew she was a captive was either his, or dead. All Dr. Melton had been told was that he was to care for her and tell no one anything about it. Even then, the man was being kept hostage himself several floors down in the apartment building.

Of course, should anyone find out that Bane had a pregnant young woman living in his care they would assume, rightly, that she carried his offspring, but wrongly that she was loyal to him and loved him enough to have a child with him. It would not occur to anyone, looking in at their relatively comfortable and surprisingly domestic life together, that her condition was merely a scientific means of getting him out of the mask he wore.

Talia had noticed that there was something different about him the last time they had met, but he'd denied anything being wrong. She'd looked at him suspiciously, but he wouldn't say anything about the girl, so there was nothing Talia could do about it. The men who knew about the situation were his men alone and smart enough not to say anything.

Bane was drawn back from his moody musing by the girl's voice. He looked up from his hands, but she wasn't looking at him. She'd been talking to the old cat she held. She hadn't exactly been unhappy for the past three months. She was often frustrated with having to stay inside at all times, and she was furious that she wasn't allowed the use of the internet, but she never seemed to dwell on a single mood. She would be deeply upset perhaps twice a week, but half an hour later, she would be happily singing in her bedroom or furiously typing away at her laptop. He'd never met anyone else like her before.

Now, though, he could tell that she was truly happy for the first time since he'd abducted her. The presence of her cat clearly meant a lot to her and he made a note to have the animal brought with them when they left. She clearly didn't have the easiest of times communicating with other people, so perhaps she and the cat shared a profound bond he couldn't understand just by looking. He'd had that sort of bond once… but he wasn't going to think about that now.

"How long have you had the cat?" he asked, not remembering ever having asked her about herself before.

"I think I was five?" she answered uncertainly, glancing up at him, before looking back down at the cat whose chin she was scratching lightly. "I remember her being newly spayed when we got her and still having her stiches in, and I had a nanny when I was five, because I went to all-day school when I was six, and I remember showing Mizz's newly healed scar to my nanny. In fact… I think that's how I used to introduce her to people, 'this is my cat Mizz; this is her scar'. She's seventeen."

The seemingly unimportant extraneous details he got out of the girl always surprised him a little. Why she would remember those specific things from seventeen years before whereas to most, unless it was strikingly significant, a conversation from that long in the past would usually be a blur of a topic, rather than actual quotes.

* * *

Thank you so much for reading! As ever, please(!) do not hesitate to drop me a message if you like or dislike or have any comments at all about this!


	6. Chapter 6

I want to thank everyone for reading, reviewing, favouriting, and following! It means so much.

* * *

It was dark when he came for her. The clock on her bedside told her it was quarter past three in the morning.

"Wake up, it's time for us to go," his voice was a whisper, but she could tell he didn't have his mask on. It was too dark to see anything.

"I haven't packed my things," Ana mumbled, pushing herself into a sitting position. "Do you have your IV in?"

"For now." He rummaged through her drawers and threw some clothes at her; underwear, leggings, and some shirts to layer with. "Put it on and get your cat. There's just enough time for you to have food."

She sighed and stripped out of the clothes she'd slept in, not caring that Bane was in the room with her. It was dark and she was his pet science experiment anyway. He wouldn't care. Ana pulled on the clean clothes. They were from before and stretched tightly across her abdomen. She smoothed her hands overtop, feeling what her body had become and sighed.

"Mizz?" she called softly. A quizzical meow answered her and she followed the sound to where her cat had been sleeping on the pillow next to hers. She pulled the cat into her arms, slid her feet into the laziest shoes she owned – a beaten up pair of Uggs that she wore when she couldn't be bothered bending over to lace up her shoes. She could have gotten Bane to do it, she supposed, but that would have been a bit too weird.

"What about my things?" she asked again, following Bane out of the room and into the kitchen.

"They will be taken care of. Everything still at your apartment and everything here is not to be worried about."

Ana quickly ate the small breakfast that had been fixed and put on a labeled tray for her and then followed Bane down the spiral staircase to the lower apartment, though the hall, and into the elevator. She slowly stroked Mizz in what she hoped was a comforting way. The cat was old and easily got unsettled by travel.

"Is there a carrier case and some food for Mizz?"

"It is waiting. Quiet."

At the ground floor, Ana followed Bane out of the elevator. He took a deep breath and pulled the IV tubing out of his arm and took her hand. She looked up at him, startled. In the months she had lived with him, it was one of the very few times he'd touched her, and the first time he'd held her hand.

"Follow my lead and go along with everything I say," he commanded, walking out of the building with her in tow.

It was the first time in months she'd been allowed outside, and the first time since her visits to Gotham General that she had been on the streets of Gotham. It was refreshing, and though it was quite cold, she let the air wash over her happily.

Bane's jaw was clenched tightly and his grip on her hand was a little too tight, but she was too pleased with being outside. Mizz was shivering where she curled cradled in her arm and pressed against her chest. Ana couldn't tell whether it was from cold or fear; probably both, knowing Mizz.

Bane led the way to a supply truck and lifted her up into the back of it before climbing up himself and pulling the back slide closed. There was a comfortable enough layer of pillows at the back of the truck. Ana settled herself down while Bane rummaged at the front. He handed her a cat carrier case and several packages of cat food. She heard a gun cock in the darkness then felt him sit down near her. She could hear him fiddling with plastic for a moment and then he sighed.

When the truck started moving, Ana clung tightly to Mizz. She knew things could go wrong and that she could end up killed, but at least she'd have her cat with her no matter what. Guns usually freaked her out, but it made her feel safer to know that Bane had his sidearm cocked and ready in case anything happened.

In the darkness, Ana could feel the rocking and bumping of the truck and she could hear the sounds of the city but she couldn't see anything properly. She envied Mizz her night vision, then. Fear of darkness was fear of the unknown, and she could feel the inky blackness pressing in around her in an almost suffocating way. Anything could go wrong and she was stuck in the dark.

As it turned out, though, all was well. The truck stopped a few times, but miraculously it was never checked, and they rode safely away from Gotham. After what had to have been hours, the van stopped and the back slide was pulled up, letting light in and blinding Ana for a moment. She sat stunned and blinking for a moment before looking around. Bane was next to her squinting against the sun, an IV bag in his arm and his mask still off. She wondered where he had put it and why he hadn't just worn it in the darkness of the truck.

"Come," he said, getting to his feet. "Put the cat in the carrier and follow."

Ana did, bringing the cat food with her and following him out into the light. It was sunny and they looked to be in the suburbs of somewhere. A dark green land rover was parked a few feet away from the truck and Bane was leaning against the driver's side speaking with a man she remembered seeing several times before.

She put Mizz's carrier and food into the back seat before opening the door and letting her out into the car. There were several suitcases in the back and a bag of food and drinks. It looked like a family road trip car. Ana closed the back and got into the front passenger seat and did up her seatbelt before calling Mizz to come sit with her. As the cat settled into her lap, she overheard bits of Bane's conversation.

"…No side effects and undetectable. Each injection should last about four hours, but use IV drugs when you sleep to give your system a rest."

Bane climbed into the car and put a box into the back seat. He did his own seatbelt up and pulled the IV tube out of his arm before sticking a syringe she hadn't even seen into the crook of his elbow. He injected it and waited a moment before starting the car. He gave a nod to the man outside before pulling onto the street and driving away.

Ana quickly lost track of time. She slept curled around Mizz in the passenger seat. She ate when she was hungry. Sometimes, she played on her laptop. All the while, Bane drove. On and on. Stopping occasionally at gas stations and rest stops so that they could use the restrooms. By the end of it, she couldn't have said how long it had been since they'd left Gotham, just that every time she got out of the car, the world outside grew warmer.

"Where are we?" she asked when they'd finally stopped. They must have been driving for two days, at least.

"Florida."

It was sunny, afternoon, probably; she hadn't bothered to check the time. They were driving across a long bridge over bright blue water. It was beautiful and Ana stared longingly out the window, wanting to swim in the gulf.

"Are we in the Keys?" she inquired, not knowing anywhere else in Florida that could possibly have such a large bridge between places.

"Yes."

The drive down to Key West was lovely. Ana rolled the window down and let the warm salty breeze come flowing into the car.

When they finally stopped, it was in front of a rather quaint bed and breakfast.

"Follow my lead and leave the cat in the car," Bane told her before getting out of the car. He walked around to her side and let her out, taking her hand and helping her down from the car. Casually, he wrapped his arm around her waist. His hand was hot through her shirt and it sent shivers spiking along her spine.

He walked with her into the office, and she looked up at him and watched as he grinned broadly at the girl behind the desk. It was fucking weird and she tried to compose herself into looking happy and normal as much as she could.

"Hello, I'm Blaine Roberts," he introduced himself, extending his hand to the girl, she took it and shook it. "This is my beautiful wife Ana," he affectionately ran his fingers through her hair and bent to quickly kiss her temple, before straightening again. "We have reservations."

"It's lovely to meet you both," the girl replied, and began tapping away at her computer. "I'm Josie, and I see you've reserved a suite for the next week?"

"That's right," Bane confirmed.

"Excellent," Josie said and turned to get a key off the hook board behind her. "This is your key, breakfast is served from 7 until 10 in the dining room which is just through that door, and I'll have someone help with your bags?"

"Oh, that won't be necessary, I've got it," Bane took the key from her. "Thank you!" he called, and followed the signs to their room, leading Ana with his hand on her waist the whole way. Once they were safely alone inside the room, she raised her eyebrows at him.

"Blaine?" she asked incredulously. "What the fuck was that?"

"Our cover," he said coldly. "I'll get the bags and your cat. Stay here."

It took two trips for him to get all of their things and park the car in the lot.

"Can I have a nap and then can I go look around the island?" she asked, settling onto the bed with Mizz.

Bane eyed the room and nodded. There was only one bed, but Ana had never seen him sleep, so she doubted he'd care. Ana pulled the covers of the king size bed over herself and her cat, snuggling her face into the pillows. It wasn't long before she was asleep. True – she had been doing nothing but relaxing in a car the past few days, but car travel wasn't half as restful as a bed.

When Ana awoke, she could feel Mizz curled against her thighs and a large warm body stretched out behind her. She dug the cat out of the blankets and sat up a little, looking at the other half of the bed. Bane was fast asleep stretched out on top of the blankets with his boots still on and his IV bag hanging from the bedpost and the tube in his vein. He must have been exhausted to need to sleep, she figured. Rather than waking him, she pushed Mizz toward him to cuddle against his hand and silently slid out of bed. She switched her leggings for shorts, shuffled into her shoes, and crept out of the room, leaving the key for him.

The sun was setting as she walked onto the streets of Key West and headed for Mallory Square. It was still warm despite the setting sun and being winter, still, and Ana felt almost free. People were laughing and smiling around her and the cheery atmosphere lifted her mood. She was grinning widely by the time she got to Mallory Square. It was full of music and buskers and people watching the different shows and talents.

Ana walked slowly around, stopping to pet a giant iguana draped over a man's shoulders, to watch a man painted entirely silver who was dancing to techno music, to gape at a sword swallower and a man who walked on a bed of nails. From across the circle of people watching two teenagers breakdancing, a boy caught her eye. He looked about her age and his bright blue eyes seemed to sparkle as he smiled at her. She smiled and looked down at her belly. Bane's science experiment would ruin any chance she had to get to know him better.

When she looked back up, he was gone; she frowned a little and looked back to the break-dancers. A tap on her shoulder a moment later made her look up; it was the boy from across the crowd. She smiled up at him.

"Hi," she said, awkwardly trying to hide her stupid grin. He smiled back at her.

"Hey," he replied in an Australian accent that made her knees a little weak. "I'm Carson."

"Ana," she introduced herself and shook his hand.

"Do you want to walk with me, Ana?" he suggested, gesturing ahead of them, out of the crowd.

Ana bit the inside of her cheek and nodded, following his lead around Mallory Square.

"So are you here alone?" Carson asked, either ignoring her belly or oblivious to it, though she couldn't imagine how anyone would possibly miss it.

"Hmmm, yes, sort of," she answered, thinking of Bane.

"Sort of?" Carson questioned looking at her strangely. "How does a pretty girl like you manage to come on holiday alone?"

"Um… well, I'm just awkward, I guess," Ana laughed a little uneasily. She never really knew how to answer complimentary questions.

Ana spent the next few hours walking around with Carson. After a while, she got tired and excused herself to go back to her hotel, arranging to meet him again the next day if she could. She couldn't help smiling as she walked through the darkened island streets. Once she arrived back at the bed and breakfast, she went back to the room, wondering if Bane was still asleep. When she walked in, she found the room empty aside from Mizz, who was still asleep right where she'd been left.

Bane arrived back a while later, smelling of sweat and sea breeze.

"Don't wander off without me again," he grumbled and shut himself in the bathroom.

"But you were asleep!" Ana called through the door.

He didn't answer back and Ana sighed, going to sit back on the bed and pet Mizz until Bane decided to either go get dinner, or take her out to eat.

* * *

I'm moving to England for six months (I fly out tonight) and the whole moving process has been really, really stressful, so I've not written much past chapter 10 in the past little while, but hopefully I'll be able to start writing again once we get there and settle in.


	7. Chapter 7

hey! i'm so sorry it's been SUCH a long time since i updated last. i sort of wrote myself into a corner and got super discouraged. but i think i've sorted it out and i'm back to writing, and back to writing means back to posting! thank you so much to everyone who reviewed and subscribed and favourited! i really appreciate it!

hopefully this isn't terrible :)

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"Did you hear about that tourist who was killed last night on the beach?"

"I heard he got his neck snapped."

The conversation stood out for a moment against the buzz of the crowded pizza parlor. Ana glanced in the way of the speakers for a moment before looking back down at the pizza she'd half finished. She wanted to go meet Carson like she'd told him she would, but Bane refused to let her out of his sight.

Starting from when she'd woken up in the morning (he'd already been awake and changed), he had taken her to breakfast and then on a walk around the island. Pretending to be married to him had not gotten any less strange the longer the charade went on. He was sweet and gentlemanly to her. He opened doors and pulled out her chair for her. Weirdest was how he was always touching her. His hand in her hair, an arm around her, his fingers laced through hers holding her small hand against his large hot palm. Even now, sitting across from each other at a booth in a pizzeria, he had his hand stretched out to hers and his thumb running absently overtop the back of her hand. Ana wondered what the fuck he thought he was doing.

Ana stared bemusedly at his hand on hers for a while before she let her eyes travel up his body and settle on his face. If she hadn't known that that was just how his face looked, she might have thought he was suffering from an allergic reaction to shellfish. And perhaps if her Asperger's had been worse, she would have told him so. It was a while before she realized that not only was she staring into his eyes, he was looking back at her. She couldn't read his expression at all, so she blinked a few times and looked away.

"Can we go to the beach?" she asked when they'd finished eating.

They spent all day lounging on the beach, watching the sun set until it had been replaced by the moon. Ana was so exhausted she could barely open her eyes and she felt herself lifted against Bane. He sat cradling her in his arms for a few moments before she felt him stand up and walk back to the hotel. The next she knew, she was being tucked into bed. Ana never felt Bane get into bed next to her and when she woke up in the morning, he was up and wearing clean clothes.

"Did you sleep?" she asked.

Bane ignored her question. "Get dressed, we're going to breakfast."

At breakfast that morning, he had a smile plastered on his face, but Ana could see it didn't reach to his eyes. He spoke to her as if he was a different person entirely and it was so bizarre. Once she could get past the weirdness of it, 'Blaine' was actually a person she quite liked, and she liked pretending with him.

Indeed, she started to seek out his hand to hold sometimes and when sat next to each other, she let herself lean her head against his shoulder. After a few days of pretending all day, she had so lost herself in playing pretend, she'd all but forgotten that they weren't actually a cute married couple on their last vacation alone before their twins were born.

The night before they had to leave, Bane took her dancing at a club with a dance floor that opened up under the stars. She turned slowly in his arms and leaned her head against his chest feeling safe and happy in their little charade that had become blurred with reality for her. Ana smiled and pulled away from him, pulling him away from the club and onto the beach. She twirled across the moonlit sand, calling him to her. She was making herself dizzy, when his arms were suddenly around her again, holding her up. The music was floating out from the club onto the beach and the moonlight was twinkling in Bane's eyes as she looked up at him. It all made her breath catch in her throat and she lifted herself on her toes and pressed her lips against his, breathing in the way he smelled and the bit of stubble on his chin that burned against her skin in a most delicious way.

He wasn't moving at all, though, and Ana pulled away. The illusion was gone and before her stood Bane, not Blaine. His eyes were wide and his arms had dropped from her body and rested at his sides. His mouth was slightly open but he said nothing and Ana's stomach dropped. _What had she been thinking? Kissing Bane when they were alone on a beach at night? _It was one thing to hold his hand in public while posing as a married couple, but there was no one to pretend for here.

"Oh…" she fumbled for words, stepping back from him. "I – I'm sorry."

Ana turned and ran from him, the damp sand sucked at her feet as she ran but she wouldn't let herself stop. The only sound was the waves and her breathing, assuring her Bane wasn't chasing after her, she glanced back and saw he was still standing where she'd left him. Ana made her way back to the bed and breakfast. She unlocked the door to their room and went in, closing it behind her and scooping up Mizz. She closed herself in the bathroom and stretched out along the tile flooring. _This is so embarrassing, how am I supposed to deal with even looking at him again?_

She heard him come back some time later. He knocked on the bathroom door, but she didn't answer and heard him walk back across the room before the bed squeaked under his weight. Ana slept in the bathtub that night, curled into towels with Mizz. In the morning, she woke up to Bane standing at the sink brushing his teeth. She glanced at him quickly, and then looked away just as fast.

They didn't speak at all that morning aside for Bane telling her to bring her cat out to the car and wait for him. When they were packed and ready to leave, Bane drove them to the Marina. A yacht staffed by Bane's goons was waiting for them. Ana was shown to her cabin by one of the goons and she spent the rest of the day in bed on her laptop with the door locked, studiously avoiding Bane. Occasionally, throughout the day, someone knocked on her door. It was just one knock, and once she was sure whoever it was had left, she checked outside the door. Her food had been brought to her, labeled like always.

Now that she had a lock on her door, it was surprisingly easy to avoid Bane. It wasn't that she was angry with him, she was just too embarrassed to face him. Dealing with people really was not her strong suit, especially when she didn't know what to say or how they felt about whatever situation was going on.

That night, Ana couldn't sleep. She walked out to the deck and sat on a lounge chair wrapped in the duvet from her bed and looked up at the stars. She'd been out there for a while – she wasn't sure how long as her sense of time was abysmal – when she heard the familiar mechanical hiss. She looked up and saw Bane towering over her, his mask back on.

"It's late. You should be asleep," he told her, looking out at the inky blackness surrounding them.

"Can't sleep," she mumbled, pulling her knees into her body as much as she could manage.

After a while, Bane nodded and retreated back below decks.

Ana almost wished he would have said something. Anything, really. She didn't know how to make things less awkward between them after having kissed him like that. It was strange and confusing for her, trying to keep straight what was pretend and what was real. It was especially disconcerting that while she had liked 'Blaine' and had really enjoyed spending time with him, Bane himself was still a mystery to her. She knew nothing of his likes or dislikes, where he was from, or even what his real name was. Ana wasn't sure she even wanted to know him at all.

* * *

The days and nights on the yacht bled together and all of it was frustrating. Being back in the mask meant he didn't sleep, so he had long hours to think, and think, and think. Mostly, Bane wondered what he had been thinking, abducting a girl and keeping her like a pet. Sometimes he thought he should have just left the girl back in Gotham with nothing growing inside of her. After all, the embryos might have been fine enough to fix him and he wouldn't be in this position – not that he really even knew what position he was actually in, a rare occasion for him.

Posing as a married couple had, without a doubt, been a mistake. Faking a normal life with the girl had come shockingly easily to him. It was unsettling, even, how easy it was to pretend to be a normal, happy man who was excited to have children with the woman he loved. Shedding the persona of 'Blaine Roberts' had been a relief every evening. It was strange, though, when he was playing at Blaine, he thought he almost did love the girl.

She had muddied the waters even further for him by kissing him that last night on the beach. He knew she'd been carried away and confused, but the second her lips had touched his, Blaine fell away like a brick and he was left on the beach with his stupid pet science experiment pressing herself against him. He couldn't move, couldn't think, and could barely keep breathing. The shock of it all had left him paralyzed in a way he'd never imagined he could be. What made it even worse was that with her pressed against him, he could feel the movements of what was inside of her against his abdomen. It only served to remind him exactly what he had done.

Bane probably could have eventually forgotten about the kiss if the girl hadn't been so exceedingly awkward about the entire thing. She'd run away from him and when he'd gone to check how she was, she'd ignored him and stayed in the bathroom the entire night. Now, she was still avoiding him. Even when he came to bring her food five times a day, she refused to answer the door, but would leave her tray of empty dishes outside the door for the next time he came. He took out his frustrations on those of his brothers who dared face him in the training gym. The girl would eventually need to stop confining herself and ignoring him, he would just have to wait it out.

Killing the Australian had helped. He knew the boy was no threat, but he hadn't liked the way he was touching the girl, so as soon as she had left, he'd followed the tourist onto the beach. He had enjoyed watching the boy cry as he apologized for talking to her and promising he'd stay away from her and begging for his life. Of course, Bane snapped his neck anyway – he was always going to – but the whole show of it had been thoroughly entertaining, despite being repulsively pathetic.

Seeing her on the yacht's deck in the middle of the night had been the only time he'd seen her at all the entire trip between Key West and Rio de Janeiro. He'd meant to say something to ease the tension she was putting between them, but nothing had come to mind, so he'd left her alone instead and retreated to the lower deck off the back of the yacht where he'd watched the churning wake until the sun had risen.

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thanks again for reading! please review and tell me what you think!


	8. Chapter 8

I am the worst. I'm so sorry. Thank you for all the follows, favourites, and reviews. They're very much appreciated. Hopefully this will make up for the long absence between chapters? I'm currently working on Chapter 11, so, hooopefully I'll be able to easily continue on. Thanks again everyone!

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For the entire drive through Rio de Janeiro, Bane watched as the girl gaped at everything out the windows. Her eyes were wide as saucers and he nearly felt bad that they weren't able to stop and actually let her look at the place while they were there. They had a strict schedule to keep to, though, so it was from the marina, through the city, and to the airport.

Bane had needed to remove his mask for their arrival in Brasil until they were safely on board the private jet that had belonged to Talia. Its numbers and paint had been changed, making it unidentifiable and untraceable. On the plane, the girl had chosen to sit at the opposite end of the plane as him. It was a relatively small private jet, so she wasn't actually that far, but he rolled his eyes all the same. This needed to stop.

Mid-flight, he went and sat next to her. She looked pointedly out the window as he turned to look at her.

"Are you going to avoid me forever?" he inquired.

"I – I wasn't…" He interrupted her.

"You were. You've been avoiding me since you kissed me," he told her.

Her face turned an unflattering shade of red and she stammered. Bane was enjoying this immensely.

"I didn't mean to," she mumbled. "I just… forgot who you were for a bit."

He had too, but he wasn't about to tell her that. Instead he shrugged.

"We're going to Thailand," he volunteered.

"Why Thailand?"

"Surgeons."

"Oh, right, your thing… I keep forgetting," she murmured. "I forget that I'm like… this." She glanced down at herself.

Bane couldn't forget because it was staring him in the face all the time. It had been easier before, though, when he could still look at her and see only a science experiment. Rather than replying, he silently sat next to her for the rest of the flight. It was hours, but he didn't mind; the girl seemed to have gotten over her embarrassment, so that it was no longer awkward between them.

He kept himself busy in Thailand while the only thing to do was wait. They had a nice enough place to stay, but he didn't spend much time in it. There was little danger here, where no one on the outside knew where they were and the League of Shadows had its fingers in every pie in Bangkok. He'd set that up years ago, when he'd looked into the best surgeons in reconstruction using stem cells. He hadn't stated that as his motive, but it generated a substantial amount of money for the League and wasn't questioned.

The sun was coming up by the time Bane arrived back at the apartment. He frowned as he walked through the door. The girl was curled on the couch in the living room having some sort of fit. She didn't notice when he entered and he walked over to her, looking down at where she was twisted and whimpering in pain. He lightly nudged her shoulder and she looked up at him.

"It hurts. You weren't here and the phones don't work," her voice was just above a whisper. Of course the phones didn't work. He'd had them disconnected.

"How long?" he asked her, checking the time.

"Hours… maybe five?"

"Stay here," he told her. "You'll be taken care of."

Bane left her on the couch, then, and went to his room. He made a call and soon, several of his most trusted brothers had come and taken the girl away to the hospital. He tried doing work, going through files and looking blankly at the words on the pages. Eventually, he just shoved the files away across the table and sat back in the chair. All there was to do was wait.

Hours later, the girl was brought back. She looked pale and sickly and retreated to her room as soon as she walked in the door. Bane watched her scurry away, but made no move to stop her, instead, choosing to speak with her escort.

"What news?" he asked.

"Preparations for your surgery are underway. It has been scheduled for two mornings from now."

"And the rest?"

"Two boys."

"Where are they now?"

"Being looked after at headquarters."

"See that they are well taken care of."

"Of course."

"And the girl?"

"I was told it went well. The doctors said she would recover fully with time and rest."

Bane nodded and sent the man on his way. He stood in the kitchen for a while staring at the floor. Eventually, he went to the fridge, made up a tray of food for the girl, got himself something to eat, and went to her room, stopping off at his own to pick up an IV bag and stand.

The girl didn't answer when he knocked on her door, but he opened it anyway. She was sat on her bed hugging her knees with her cat curled up on her feet. She didn't bother looking up at him when he came in and only glanced away from her cat when he set the food tray on the bed and pushed it toward her.

"You should eat," he told her, setting up his IV and lounging in the chair beside her bed. "You must be hungry and tired."

She glanced over at him while he took his mask off. It was strange. He had gotten what he needed out of her, and should feel finished with her, but a feeling, like hooks beneath his ribcage, hit him when he looked at her and he realized that he still felt protective of her. She had nothing for him, her presence served no further purpose, and still he was compelled to keep her rather than to send her away.

He ate with her and then left her alone.

Two days later, he had his surgery.

Everything was hazy as he woke up in a sterile white room to the soft beeping noise of his heart rate monitor. A dull ache burned in his back and face, but he didn't much notice it. Though it hurt, it was nothing compared to his usual pain without the mask, or with it, for that matter. It had been so long that he'd forgotten what it felt like to not be in constant agony. The mask, injections, and IVs had made it hurt less, it was true, but he'd just needed to become used to the pain. This ache, this was from the surgery. Fresh incisions and a newly repaired nose – he'd gotten his teeth replaced years before – were the cause of this pain… and in addition to it, nothing. The surgery had worked. He reminded himself that the cells could reject and the pain could return, but for the moment, he languished in the dull ache.

Bane was forced to stay in bed for days, a thing he resented immensely, and in the end when he was finally allowed to go back to the apartment, it was without the mask or any painkillers.

The girl was still there, of course, sad and lonely and lethargic. He had been instructed to stay in bed and rest, but he disregarded this. Instead, he got food for them both and brought it to her room. She looked at him oddly when he walked in.

"They fixed my nose," he told her as he set her tray on the bed.

"You look nice," she mumbled, picking at her food.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

Her answer was a shrug.

Bane sighed and reached for her food tray. He set it on the bedside table before sliding into the girl's bed.

"What are you doing?"

He shushed her and pulled her back against his chest, settling her against his body. In the Pit, when Talia had been sad or scared, this was what he had done for her and it had always helped.

"Just relax," he commanded softly, his chin ducked against his chest so that his mouth rested just against her temple.

The girl remained tense for a few moments more before going limp against him, letting all the tension melt out of her. He absently rubbed her back and shoulders as he listened to her breathing slow and return to normal. After a while, he looked down and saw that she'd fallen asleep curled against his chest. For a moment, he considered waking her so that he could leave, but instead he let her be and closed his own eyes.

When Bane woke up, his body was molded around the girl's and their legs were entwined. In sleep, they had curled in on each other and he could feel her slow breaths against his neck. It sent chills down his newly repaired spine. She looked young and fragile in sleep and it pulled at his insides in a strange way. He wanted to protect her and keep her safe and he wasn't sure when he had started feeling that way about her. At some point, caring about protecting his experimental offspring had turned into caring for the girl as well.

"Is this okay?" she mumbled against his skin. He hadn't noticed her wake up. She snuggled sleepily into him, hiding her eyes from the light by burrowing into the space between his neck and pillow.

"Mmm," he murmured in the affirmative, curling his arm around her. He didn't know what he meant by touching her like this, but it felt nice so he let himself lounge in bed with her for longer than he'd have stayed in bed if he were alone.

When they finally did get out of bed, the girl was almost back to her old self again. She brought her cat and came to eat breakfast with him in the kitchen. She was quieter than she had been before, but at least she was speaking to him again.

"Did your surgery go well?" she wondered.

"It's too early to tell if anything will reject, but nothing hurts anymore," he told her.

"That's good. I'm… glad to have helped," she mumbled with a shrug.

Bane looked at her and could tell she was saying it to be polite. He'd abducted her, impregnated her with an experiment to help himself, and dragged her half way around the world. He didn't regret it and wasn't sorry, but he also knew she wasn't glad and probably resented him for it. He had no reply for her other than a nod.

"Have you um… seen them?" she asked awkwardly.

"No. But they're being looked after by people I trust."

"Oh… that's good. I didn't get to see them either. They were born and they took them straight away. Do you know what they are?"

Despite not having lived for very long past his birth, even Bane's own mother had at least seen him and been able to hold him and know she'd birthed a son. Whatever had gone on at the hospital was not his fault; he hadn't been consulted, but he thinks he'd have at least let the girl see what she'd brought into the world. She may not call them children, preferring to think of it all as a medical science experiment, but they were partly hers.

"Both boys," he replied and cleared this throat. "When you feel better, I could send you to see them, if you want."

"No!" she answered hurriedly, and then composed herself. "I mean, I don't think I want to. Not yet, anyway."

Bane shrugged easily.

"Whenever you're ready, say the word."

The girl nodded, looking down at her cat, who was still sitting in her lap getting its ears scratched.

It unsettled him, a few days later, when he went to see the boys for the first time. The marriage of his features with the girl's showed plainly in their faces. His own blue-green eyes and the girl's dark hazel ones, his full lips, the strange parallel set of the girl's nose from brows to nostrils, the high brows they both share, and her olive skin and pointed chin. The boys look alike and different, but both have stolen their face from the girl and him.

For a moment, he thought of asking the girl what they should name the boys, but a second later the thought is gone. For the past months, she had been determined not to think of herself as a mother and he wouldn't press a mother's job on her now that she was no longer incubating their offspring. He decided on Abel and Jordan. They came to him quickly and he didn't bother to question from where they came. He had no last name to give them, so they would be known simply by their first names.

Before he left he was careful to inform their caretakers that Jordan had hazel eyes and Abel had blue-green eyes.

When he got back to the apartment, Bane thought of telling the girl about the boys, but he thought better of it and kept mum on the subject.

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Thanks for reading! I hope it was worth the wait, I'm sorry!


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